neko-wizard adventures
http://forums.megatokyo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB8&Number=394364#Post394364
Fri Feb 15 2002 03:59 AM
[!--OOC: oi, watch the clichés fly in this one! At least there's none of that loony techno-babble that I use when writing Echo...
Also, my apologies to everyone that I've angsted at over the past few days (yeah, lookit me, I'm a Prima Donna!). All this serious character work I've been thinking about (which will show up in later posts) has been really messing with my head. But now I'm back with some good, old-fashioned RPG comedy! w00t! --]
-- Inside the helicopter --
Wizard of Kitty sat quietly in the rough, military seat bolted to the wall of the aircraft. She was munching skittles happily and watching the ground whiz past far below.
"Wheee, I never fly this fast on my own!" she cried. "Heck, I don't fly at all, really. Only when I have to." The guards were grateful that she was being so calm. They had all been told that she was rather dangerous when she wanted to be. Nonetheless, they had taken her metal pole away from her, at the expense of a few bruises and cracked skulls.
Kitty's fingers felt around inside her bag of candy.
"Empty? Oh drat. Anno, Sir, I'm out of skittles," she tugged the sleeve of the soldier nearest her. "Have any more?" she looked up at him and her eyes sparkled, radiating kawaii. She knew she could be very convincing when she wanted to be.
The man grunted, slid his hand inside the pocket of his flak jacket, and flipped the girl another pack. She tore it open and scarfed a few more, so busy enjoying the candy that she missed the smug grin on the man's face.
Five skittles later, Kitty was out like a light. They had been laced with a powerful sleep drug. The helicopter began it's decent.
-- A dark room --
Through deep, swirling mists of thought and dream, Kitty felt a prick in her arm, very far away. Her arm felt swelled as something was injected into it. Slowly, this new drug pulled her back to consciousness.
Kitty's eyes flew open. The sparkle of curiosity was almost gone from them as they flitted about her surroundings. Normally nothing would disturb her bubbly personality, but being drugged was more than a little scary.
It was dark here. Dim outlines were all she could make out. She was sitting in a rough wooden chair. The air was musty and thick. Water was dripping. Something was crawling. Over her foot. She yelped and heard it scurry away. A single light clicked on over her head, and she blinked in surprise as her eyes adjusted.
When she could see again, she looked around. A pair of glasses glinted at her, perched Ikari Gendo-style on the face of a shadowy figure seated at a shadowy desk. His fingers were steepled in front of his face, casting further darkness on his identity.
"How do you like the new place?" the person, apparently an Asian male, asked.
"It's smelly," the girl wrinkled her nose.
"It's because of you and your people that we're forced to be here, you know."
"Oro?"
"You *destroyed* our old building..." The man leaned into the light and she instantly recognized him.
"Dom," she breathed.
"Indeed," he grinned in a feral manner. "But enough of the pleasantries. This is a business call." Kitty remained silent for once. "He wants it back. We know you have it, so you might as well make our job easy."
"Have what?"
"Don't play dumb." Another figure, one Kitty hadn't noticed before, shifted behind Dom. He stepped into the light, hands clasped behind his back.
"Ed?" the girl asked. "You guys hate each other!"
"Times are hard." Ed said matter-of-factly. "We've both got to moonlight to make ends meet. Troubleshooters Inc. is a way for us to both earn extra money doing what we love."
NOW Kitty knew what was going on. She remembered this comic. In fact, she had been inside of it earlier that very night. She grinned inside.
"Doing what we love mostly involves hurting and killing people," Dom continued, whipping out a gun casually. Kitty's eyes widened. Even *she* understood what was going on when *Dom* waved a gun around. He re-holstered it. "But lucky for you, we get the occasional kidnapping and/or search-and-recovery operation, too. Which is what this is."
"Dom here just happened to have some Company resources he could throw at this little 'personal' problem. Make our job easy so we don't have to use this," Ed stepped forward, wagging a long feather at her menacingly.
"[gulp] Not tickling! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO [gasp, pant pant] OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
"Woah, woah," cried Dom over the noise, hands pressed to his ears. "We won't have to do anything if you just give it back."
"Give what back?" Kitty asked innocently. A quick spell created a glowing halo that floated above her head. At this point she knew *exactly* what they wanted. But seeing as how they weren't going to kill her, she might as well have her fun.
Dom sighed.
"Must we explain everything? Largo put in a call about an hour ago. His Wack-A-Troll game is missing. Internal comic-strip security systems detected a foreign presence *inside* the comic art from February 20th. We traced it back to you."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Kitty grinned hugely, sweat-dropping. "Eh-heh-heh-heh," she added.
Ed moved closer, waving the feather again.
"WAAAA! All right, all right! Here's your stupid game!" Kitty pulled out a purple velvet bag about six inches square, held shut with a drawstring, from somewhere on her person. She threw it on the table and it landed with a sizable [thud], denting the desktop.
"THIS is the Wack-A-Troll game?" Dom's eyebrow was cocked in disbelief.
"Open it."
He did. There was a large puff of smoke, which Dom caught in the face, the game in question appeared where the bag had been. Dom coughed loudly and waved the cloud away.
When his face could be seen again it had a cat muzzle scrawled on it in stage paint, and whiskers were glued to his nose. Big orange neko-ears were strapped to his head. Both Kitty and Ed snickered. She knew she was pressing her luck with a spell like that.
Dom crossed his eyes as he stared at the whiskers. He slowly reached up and felt at the ears. Ed broke into a full belly laugh. Dom reddened as he realized what had happened. His gun was out in a flash, aimed at WoK.
"THAT'S IT, YOU'RE DEAD!" he screamed. Kitty flinched, terrified. A [click] beside Dom's head stopped him short.
"You kill her and you're dead too, Dom," Ed said from the other end of his gun. "I [B]like[/B] kawaii things. At least in moderation."
Dom spun away and behind the large desk, seeking cover. Ed did likewise. In a moment, the room had erupted into a massive firefight. Their partnership was clearly having troubles.
A random guard was watching this from the other side of a bulletproof one way mirror. He was sick of this always happening. That dratted little girl had started it this time. WoK was already edging toward the exit when he dashed into the room and dragged her out.
-- a generic scene change ---
Kitty found herself flying through the air again. Only this time she didn't have a helicopter underneath her. She landed unceremoniously on her rear, outside the maintenance entrance to a seedy hotel.
Her metal pole followed her. Unfortunately. It bounced off her head and clattered to the ground a few feet away.
"Oro... x.x" Kitty rubbed at her head.
She looked around. This was not the best part of town. Anyone, even a mischievous young neko-sorceress, would run into trouble here. *Especially* a mischievous young neko-sorceress. She had better find BGMaster, Queslin and her friends quickly. She spied a payphone and dashed over to it. She rummaged through her assorted pockets and bags and personal bits of Hammerspace.
No coins. But she did have a spare bag of skittles, and everything was possible with skittles! She dumped a couple in her hand and held them in front of her face. She blew on them and their candy shells flaked off in a fine spray of sugary bits.
When she stopped blowing, two 100 Yen coins rested in her hand. [I]"Now who to call?"[/I] she thought. BG had a cell phone, she was sure, but she didn't know the number.
No matter. Another pocket of her personal Hammerspace held a certain book, and she pulled it out now. Or, at least it was plastic molded in the shape of a book. She popped open a small door on the top and dumped the rest of her bag of skittles inside. As much as she hated to waste good candy, these were desperate times. And her skittle-powered phonebook [1] could find *any* number on Earth, even if, like in BG's case, the phone didn't always exist.
She tapped at the touch-screen on the front, drawing a caricature of BG. The phonebook hummed for a moment and printed a ten-digit number. She popped her 100-yen pieces into the payphone and began to dial.
-- back to Dot Plevices we go! BG is in the middle of a fight with Kaiger --
[!--OOC: I'm leaving this part purposely very vague, so as to fit in w/ your post more easily, BG--]
A quiet ringing was bothering BG. He barely dodged another punch from Kaiger, momentarily distracted.
[ring-ring]. [ring-ring]. Ah, that was it. He kicked off from his current stance and used Anime Physics to fly back a good thirty feet, landing next to Queslin. He concentrated for a moment and a ringing cell phone dropped out of nowhere and into her hands.
"Would you please *answer* that?" he demanded, and then leapt back into the fray.
-click-
"Hello?"
"Queslin?"
"Kitty, you're OK!" Queslin was ecstatic. Echo, Jones and she had been trying to figure out a way to track the girl, and now one had been handed to them. "Where are you?"
"Yeah, I'm ok. ^_^" You could hear her smile through the phone. "I'm in a pretty scary place right now, though."
"Where? Do you know where? Can you see some cross-streets?" Queslin had to fight to keep herself rational as her thoughts spun happily.
"Back in a moment," Kitty informed her. A muffled rustling came from the cell phone as the receiver on the other end was dropped. Queslin used the delay to tap into the MegaTokyo phone network and start tracing the call.
"Corner of---AAAAIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" The connection went dead. Queslin's heart dropped into her shoes. But she could find where the girl was. She turned to Echo, who had been standing beside her, listening.
"It was Kitty, she's in trouble! She... she..." Queslin shook her head to clear her thoughts. Echo rested a hand on her shoulder, patiently waiting for her to sort things out. It was the simplest, most sincere thing he could think to do.
"I know where she is!" Queslin continued, havning finished the trace. "Near here, follow me!" She ran to her motorcycle and mounted it, followed by Echo and Shinobi Jones. All three bikes were still in one piece, even after the firefight. Their proximity to a Dot Plevice's factory might have had something to do with that, though.
"You found Kitty?" Jones cried happily, staggering a little from his concussion as he hopped on his own bike. "I'm going with you!"
"Let's go!" and Queslin was off, the engine of her bike screaming. She fired a quick IM to Yukiko explaining where they were going. Yukiko IMed back an ok.
-- Whee, a high-speed motorcycle run! --
Jones and Echo could barely keep up with Queslin as they raced through the streets at more than 200 kilometers per hour (this is MegaTokyo, remember. All units are metric). Luckily it was only a few miles, and traffic was relatively light at this time of night. They could see WoK ahead, running down the street, chased by two shadowy figures. Jones saw this and it made his blood boil.
Strange things happen in MegaTokyo when you really want them to. For instance, Jones discovered an eighth gear on a motorcycle that only had seven. He shifted and flew past Echo and Queslin, engine racing at more than 8000 RPMs.
Wizard of Kitty had not had a very good time after her phone call was interrupted. When she went to look at the nearest cross-streets she had attracted the attention of two street punks. They were big and scary looking and had hung up her phone. They said they wanted her money, and would probably take her candy too, given the chance. She preferred to run, rather than stay put and try to out-skittle them.
Something else strange happened to Jones at this point. He realized that he didn't have a blade with him. But his will was burning madly as he watched the two goons close on WoK, and like I said earlier, MegaTokyo bends itself to those who want it badly enough. He looked down to find a fine long katana strapped to his bike.
The Shinobi, still astride his bike, raced past Kitty, drawing his newfound sword as he went. Two slashes and one Suzuki Pass [2] later, the thugs fell to the ground dead.
Jones skidded around and raced back to where WoK was now standing, a few paces from the fallen men. The girl beamed up at him.
"Arigato!" she sparkled happily. Jones grinned. His heart felt like it would burst.
"Glad I could help, Miss Neko-chan." He was unintentionally being more formal than his usual 'WoK'.
Queslin and Echo skidded thier bikes to a halt and jumped off. Queslin ran up and hugged WoK.
"Kitty!"
"Queslin!" the girl squeaked happily. She released Queslin after a moment and glanced down at the mess Jones had made of the two men. Her face fell.
"Hi... Hidoi" she stuttered sadly, getting down on her knees beside them. She immediately started a healing spell.
Jones had never seen anything like it before. Showing mercy to two men who had just been trying to rob her! He was sure of it now, he wanted to be her official fanboy. And never being one to put that sort of thing off, he started to ask. Kitty finished her healing spell and helped the two groggy men stand.
"WoK, could I be yo---"
"BUT NOT HIDOI ENOUGH!!!" cried WoK, grinning and inadvertently cutting Jones off. One of the punks yelped and scrambled as her metal pole smashed into the concrete where he had been standing. Jones tried to start again, but it was too late. Kitty, feeling much more confidant now that her friends were here, was otherwise occupied.
"Baka baka baka baka baka baka baka baka baka baka baka baka baka!!!" she hollered happily, floating down the street and alternately bashing the two punks with her pole and bouncing bowling-ball-sized skittles off their heads.
Queslin giggled. Echo smiled. Jones sighed.
"We'd better head back now that we've found her," Echo said. They all stood watching for a moment more.
"Baka baka baka baka baka baka baka baka baka baka baka!" was fading into the distance. The 'bot oil-dropped.
"Uh..... we should probably go catch her..."
------------------
[1] Just what the heck is a skittle-powered phonebook, and how does it work? I dunno. But it sure sounded funny when I thought of it today...
[2] A Suzuk[B]a[/B] Pass is the name my friend and I use for that one anime take where two sword fighters rush each other and take one stroke each, freezing once they're past each other. Outlaw Star is one of the first anime either of us had either watched, and the character Suzuka does this move a lot, hence the name. And I know Jones' bike isn't a Suzuki (he just reminded me that it is, in fact, a Ducati). I just couldn't resist the pun.
[!--OOC: Hopefully I haven't interfered with anyone's plans too much.
DWC, it's always been my idea that the comic takes place in MT.comicspace, and our RPGs take place in MT.fanboyspace. Fanboyspace is *very* heavily derived from Comicspace, and should thusly be kept as close to Comicspace as possible. *But*, since it is a different world, inconsistancies created by new comics (that weren't around when the RP in question was written) don't have to be worried about. Unless a good, comedic explanation can be found, that is.
Big props to Tanetris, who came up with the idea of ending WoK's confrontation with Dom and Ed in a massive firefight. The previous ending wasn't *nearly* as interesting. ^_^
Um, nothting else I can think of to put in the OOC tag... Peace all, and goodnight.--]